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Monthly Archives: May 2010

And now I’m completely caught up on all of Jim Butcher‘s books. What a ride on this one. It’s the latest in the Dresden Files series, and did not disappoint. As usual, no spoilers, but it was well worth the time. I thought he telegraphed part of the wrap-up a little, but it could be that I’m getting more used to his reading style. The last few pages of the book took me by complete surprise. Definitely NOT what I was expecting and I’m wondering what’s going to happen next…

The carpenter came by and removed the microwave and took down the cabinet that needs to be shortened. The kitchen looks a little odd without it there, but it’ll be back soon enough. It looks like the doors should be ready to go next week, so hopefully within the next few weeks it’ll be finished off completely. Cabinets, doors, and walls painted, as well as the new countertop and sink installed. That will be a significant step forward in cleaning the house up.

Thanks to being done with classes for the semester I’ve been able to make some progress on reducing the size of my to-be-read pile. It’s still rather large, and will take the rest of the summer to work through, provided I don’t add to it. But I wouldn’t count on that…

Book Six of the Codex Alera picks up pretty much immediately after Book Five ends, with the refugees on their way back to Alera while the surviving Alerans pick up the pieces and continue to fight the Vord. To say that there were twists that I wasn’t expecting is an understatement, and in some respects I was guessing up until the end. It looks like this was the end of the series, at least for the time being. Though I do hope that he does revisit Alera at some point in the future. I could see some prequels, especially origins-type stuff, as well as some Vord/Canim issues that need to be resolved…

Here’s a fun little read, and it was a good way to celebrate the end of the semester. The first part of the book goes over the history of the brewery, from its founding up to today. The rest of the book covers much of the life and corporate culture of Guinness as well as the many social programs and philanthropic ventures the Guinness family and employees have undertaken. It was educational as well as entertaining, and is well worth a couple evenings…

I’ve had a Sun StorEdge cabinet sitting in the garage for a while now and finally got around to making it into a tool chest. The first part of the fun was stripping everything StorEdge out of it: fiber, power cables, PDUs, fiber switches, GBICs, and all of the mounting hardware for the D1000/A1000 trays.

Once it was stripped I could get some accurate measurements for what the shelves will be. It looks like they’re going to be 18″x34″ and I’m spacing them about 20U apart, so I’ll have 6 shelves.

As of now they’re all cut, three (four if you count the one on the bottom) are mounted, and I’ve got to run out to Home Depot to pick up some more angle brackets for the other two shelves and some peg board for the inside of the door.

We all met up at Pappadeaux for dinner and had a blast. Mitch and Darleen; Reese, Joi, and I; Doug, Renee, and Sammy; and some friends filled out the table and had a lot of fun. Reese and Sammy had a good time and it was good catching up with Doug and Renee. Not much more to say except that I really need to get down there more often. It’s not prohibitively far away…

Dinner tonight was a gamble. I enjoy watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and saw an episode featuring Cafe Pita +, and since we’re staying about a mile away, it was a no-brainer to check it out.

It’s an unassuming restaurant in a strip center, but don’t let the appearances fool you. The food is awesome, the service was great, and the prices were well within expectations. If you’re in Houston you need to check this place out.

We got moving a little late, but not too late, and headed on down to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Reese had a really good time, but I was a little bit let down by the quality of some of the exhibits. There were too many of the electronic ones that were broken. I guess museum funding is one of the first things that suffers during a bad economy, but…

One of the high points was the butterfly habitat, which was a lot of fun to wander through, and Reese seemed to enjoy himself. We ran in to a German couple while in there and had some fun with them and a very persistent butterfly.

On the way out I let Reese pick out a geode and we had it cracked open. It had some really nice quartz crystals inside. Reese and I agreed to keep halves at each house, so mine is wrapped up to go in the saddlebags now…